The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

Ornate fronts.

Zoom into the front of this building and you’ll see all of the details and nice work that’s gone into it. Also, this is a large building, not the skinny houses, which is unique.

Ugly, or at least confused. architecture.

Yes, it happens. Not all homes on the canals look really nice; probably after a few remodels.

Multiple styles.

If you haven’t noticed by now, all different styles of houses get packed in together, although they’re generally all tall and skinny.

Matching rooflines.

These pictures are of the same building, or buildings, from two different sides. It could be considered one building, but it’s built as four independent buildings. At least that’s what it looks like from the outside. You never really know until you go into the building and discover the labyrinth.

Just about every street corner, and many of the streets, have shops or businesses on the ground floor. Living above a book shop would be OK, but not a restaurant!

I consider these to be front gardens. Many of the houses on canals will have a garden in the back, but a few maintain something in the front too.

Often when a big remodel happens on the canal houses, they keep a traditional look, but with nice clean lines.

Rounded doors and windows. It’s not too common to see, but sometimes the corner of a building will be rounded so that doors and windows can be squeezed in. Yes, the front door is curved, but it isn’t as easy to see as the curved window that’s above it.

Some houses don’t lean forward, they lean sideways. Usually, it’s because something has gone wrong with the foundation, or it can’t handle the weight of some remodel that was unforeseen when the original foundation was put in. Read more about that here. Either way, I do enjoy seeing the leaning houses.

The forward tilt, usually for hooks. Since it’s difficult or impossible to get furniture up the steep staircases in most Amsterdam homes, it has to go through the windows. Often, houses tilt forward so the furniture doesn’t hit the house when it gets pulled up. I suspect some houses tilt because they’re sinking too! You can even buy stock photography of these house hooks too.